Eventide
by scullyseviltwin
Summary: You broke my heart, Frank. Fix it." Set during 4X04, 'Dexter Takes a Holiday." Deb/Lundy.


My thanks to lauridsen09 for her help.

* * *

It was safe to say that there was a part of Debra Morgan that believed she would never have this again, this wholeness. There was a real part of her that-for a long time-believed she'd lost that one chance at happiness, that she had to settle, that she had to be content with what meager rations she could scrounge and that was that.

Why it had never entered her mind to go after him, to track him down, to make him understand that people didn't generally _feel_ this, that-fuck-she'd never felt this, now seemed ridiculous. The sheer fact of feeling his arms around her and knowing intrinsically that _this_ is what real and right and good felt like, well...

Up against the door of his rented room, she breathed against his lips, pausing for a moment from their desperate kisses. "Jesus, _jesus_ Frank." Blinking at him, she slid her hands down to his neck and held them there, just gazing at him. It was something that she wouldn't have done a year ago, a month ago, wouldn't have done with anyone but him. "Jesus," she whispered and dropped her head, no longer able to fathom... any of it.

"Debra," came his strangled whisper as he tightened his hand around her neck. "I..."

Lifting her head, she smile at him, a shadow of a thing, "I know."

His eyes flitted over her face, her hair, fell on her lips. "You have no idea," he claimed and leaned back in, slanting his lips over hers easily. And the way he kissed her now, delicately, passionately, lovingly, she wanted to cry. Her mouth opened to his on a sob and she fought for breath, her heart beating double-time.

God, _god_, she was in-fucking-love. And it felt... it felt destructive and beautiful and out of control and like home. Everything about him, his scent, his touch, his voice, the way he wore his god damned trousers. Home. "You broke my fucking heart, Frank," she managed in between presses of his mouth. "You broke my fucking heart."

And she couldn't forget, not so easily.

"I know, honey. I know and I-"

"Fucking _fix it_," she pleaded on a sob and wound her arms around his waist held herself tight, flush against him and just breathed for a moment. She could hear it all, the hum of the air conditioner as it attempted to drone out the sounds of water lapping at wood, the muffled voices from the parking lot below. All of them paled in comparison to the thud of his heart as his beat against his breastbone. The staccato thump-thump-thump fell in sync with her own heartbeat and she looked up at him.

His thumbs were at her hips and his mouth on her cheek and he breathed and she breathed and when he pressed himself against her, she moaned so deeply Deb swore she'd have a sore throat for days. With his hands against her hip bones, he pulled her with him, towards the queen bed that took up the majority of the right side of the room. And with her lips to his, she smiled because Deb knew that this was the beginning of living with instead of without.

His hands felt the same as they had in the past and in her head, she wanted to believe that nothing had changed. Her mouth was frantic, working its way over his face, her hips pressing his down into the mattress hard. Too hard, hard so that he wouldn't move, couldn't move, couldn't leave. Fingertips found their way under the waistband of her pants and he was saying something but the endorphin rush she was on, the fear and the elation, it was making her mind buzz.

"Sweetheart," he cut in, with a grunt, grabbing her hips with a startling force she'd never felt from him. "We have," a quick hand motioned to brush the hair out of her eyes, "All night."

Inside of her, there was a shift and Deb felt an immense sadness, a swallowing of her soul. Limp, she fell to his chest, sprawled out over his torso; immediately, Frank twined his legs around hers and they became a tangled mess. She wanted to say, 'I wish you hadn't said that' because the words sounded wrong, sounded like they foreshadowed the morning. At the moment, the morning was eons away and that was more than fine.

Deb slid to his side and he tucked her into his side, laid there and breathed with her. "I tried not to think of you," she whispered. "It was so damn hard, you know? It's just, I couldn't wait for you to come back."

His chest rose and fell, and Deb allowed her eyes to fall closed, his steady breaths a calming relief.

After a time, she tilted his head and planted a kiss against his throat. 'This is how it's supposed to be,' she thought, 'Just like this.' It was touch, feel, taste, smell, sight, forever was all of those things and forever was lying right beside her, waiting for her to accept it.

With a renewed frenzy, she shifted to lean on her knees, her hands pressing into his chest. "Need to feel you," she explained as she tore at the buttons of his shirt, hands shaking with the sheer want of skin-on-skin. With each unhinged button she became slightly less patient and when she reached the last three, she clawed at them until they flew free from the shirt and the fabric parted. "I'm sure you can still tuck it in, no one'll notice," came her breathy chuckle and then she tore at her own shirt and tugged until she was free of the clothing.

Frank grinned up at her, his palms moving over the skin of her lower back. "Am I participant in this, or just the subject?" he asked in jest.

"Shhhh," she responded, "Subjects don't talk."

Before Deb knew it, he'd flipped her over and pinned her down to the mattress. Hair tousled, chest heaving, she brought her hands up to his shoulders and pushed the shirt off; with a quick shake of his arms it was on the floor. Sounds from the marina below filtered into the silence of the room, the silence that had settled when he couldn't manage to tear his gaze away from hers. "Debra," he began, fingers stroking her cheek.

She shook her head slowly, "No, no... too much, too much talking."

The smile he gave her was the most tender thing she'd seen and she closed her eyes on it, and reached up to pull him down to her. It felt like a soul resurrection, like every nerve ending in her body was simultaneously on fire and in suspended animation. Before, there had been a fraction of this, now she was struggling to find ground, hold on, keep her head above water. If clichés were her thing, she would compare him to tidal wave, being in his arms to drowning. If she were into clichés, she would put money on the idea that she was in love.

His hand slid under the waistband of her slacks to settle against her ass. And just like that, a slow, predatory smile slid over her lips, helping to erase the emotion that had bubbled up. "Straight to the point," she whispered before capturing his lips again.

It was that coming-home feeling, when he slid into her. It was everything she remembered, but still a shock, still new. Still, she struggled to breathe, had to press her hands to his chest for a moment to allow it all to just... just sink the fuck in.

Everything was slow, everything he did. When he slid in, when he moved, when he kissed her and when she swore to fuck that he whispered, heatedly, that he loved her. Deb felt like she was being eaten away, slowly dissolving and succumbing; it was brilliant. When she came, she dug her nails into his shoulders so hard that he bled, and that was brilliant too.

The afterglow that filtered into their bones was heavy, leaden. Deb was strewn across his chest, as though deposited there by a strong wind. Hair askew, cheeks flushed, body sore, she felt new and wonderful and beautiful and whole. She felt indestructible.

She shifted and turned, noted the time on the clock and for a moment did nothing. Her ear to his chest, she listened to his simultaneous breathing and beating of his heart; second from slipping into slumber, she awoke with a start, sitting up, the rest of the world slamming back into her memory. "Oh jesus, oh, fucking... fucking, Anton," she moaned and looked down at Frank.

He was smiling that knowing, soothing, patient smile he had. It didn't occur to her to return the smile. The evening had been shattered, everything would go to shit if she didn't, if she didn't. "He's waiting for me, he's..."

"It's alright," Frank said, rearranging himself against the flat, hotel-issue pillows. She wished he could stay like that, right there, so she could hold him in her memory, so she could hold this damn-near-perfect moment with her forever.

"I gotta, I need to," she was frantic, picking up her clothes from where they were strewn. Frank watched from the bed, head perched on an upturned hand. Deb pulled on her pants haphazardly while simultaneously hopping around trying to locate her shoes. "Shit, shit, shit, I- Frank, I-"

"I'm staying in Miami," he called, waited.

Her head peeked up from her search of the floor, her lip tucked between her teeth. "Yeah, when'd you decide that?"

"About the second I saw your face," came his words, clear and succinct, his eyes never breaking gaze with hers.

The shock set into her face and it went blank. Deb's initial reaction was to run; inherently, she wanted to trust him but the part that had chastised herself for coming to him in the first place screamed in her mind that he wasn't reliable, that it was inevitable he'd leave again. "After all," he tossed in, settling down into the pillows more comfortably, "All of the old fogies retire to Florida, right?"

A laugh bubbled out of her, and like that, she was endeared... "Tcha, okay." It was bizarre, his ability to allow the most intense of situations to just roll off of him, to filter it all out, to hope for the best. It pissed her off, it made her livid, but it gave her the tiniest morsel of hope that maybe this time, things would turn out properly, that she would get what she needed.

Deb licked her lips, looked at the ceiling, the wall, anywhere but at him. Slowly, she slid her feet into her shoes and shrugged on her shirt. With hands on her hips, she waited for the words to come to her, but they never did. This was... this was everything. This was the end result that she hadn't allowed herself to dream of.

It had occurred to her, years ago, that this might never happen for her but now...

"Here," Frank swung his legs out of bed and got up, "I'm going to walk you out."

She smiled at him.

He smiled back. "Like a gentleman."


End file.
